Chapter 147: Only Names Remain

The county that Ye Ling and her group arrived at was called Huafeng County. As the name suggests, there are mountains in the area.

Province A is two-thirds mountainous, and the mountains are all connected to each other.

When Ye Ling and the others arrived at the core of Huafeng County, she immediately used her divine sense and ice element to survey the surroundings and found that there were no mountains or even small hills.

You Ziming, Ye Boxuan, and Chu Moqing checked their surroundings for any useful information.

This is a habit ingrained in them; they always observe their surroundings first wherever they go.

Chu Moqing said solemnly, "The snow is already more than two meters deep, and there are no signs of human activity in the vicinity."

You Ziming reached out and grabbed a handful of snow, squeezing it tightly. With a 'crunch', he said, "The dark element here is very strong. The snow in my hand contains a lot of dark element."

In layman's terms, all negative energy belongs to the dark element, such as despair, death, resentment, abyss, curses, and evil spirits. All negative energies belong to the dark element, which is what Lingling calls evil energy.

Through the snowflakes, I learned that the dark elements here contain a large amount of deathly aura and resentment, mixed with some aura from the abyss.

Chu Moqing looked at him: "No signs of life?"

You Ziming shook his head slightly: "No."

Ye Jingyan spoke up: "There are no living people left in this county. There are still some corpses under our feet, but they have all become food for those strange insects."

Ye Ling looked at You Ziming: "Aura of the Abyss, is this your first time encountering it?"

You Ziming shook his head: "No, when I stepped into Province A, I discovered that the dark elements here contained an aura from the abyss."

Ye Ling said to them, "I have gathered the information I wanted. Let's go back to the space."

Once the five returned to the space, they took off their equipment, and Wen Yanchen and the others who had been waiting for them immediately surrounded them.

"So, what did you find?"

Are there any survivors?

Is it still snowing outside?

Ye Ling looked at them and said, "The snow here will last for at least another half month. Let's sit down over there and talk slowly."

A group of people sat together under the hibiscus tree. Ye Ling spoke up: "Huafeng County is on the very edge of the earthquake zone. When the earthquake happened, some of the mountains in this area were disintegrated, and others were swallowed up by cracks."

The buildings we see are actually just a few; the rest have been swallowed up by the cracks.

Huafeng County is now just a name; all life here vanished along with the cracks. The tour group said the dark element here is very strong, especially the aura of death and resentment.

She looked at You Ziming: "Do you know why?"

You Ziming looked at her, thought for a moment, and said, "More than 100,000 people died in an instant, so it's understandable why the aura of death is so strong here."

But where did this resentment come from? Unless... the people here, after being swallowed by the rift, didn't die immediately, but instead awaited death in despair. And the abyss's aura must originate from the rift.

Moody and Wen Mengxia got goosebumps all over when they heard this.

Wei Chi looked at You Ziming: "I know, I've seen similar things in ghost story videos before. It's about villages being swallowed by cracks during major earthquakes, and later, people on the surface could hear desperate cries from underground."

Ye Ling looked at You Ziming: "That's right, your analysis is basically all correct."

Moody, holding Wen Mengxia, looked horrified: "Lingling, you mean, the people here didn't die when they were devoured?"

Ye Ling's expression was also very grim: "Some of them didn't die. When they were swallowed by the crack, the houses and people were swallowed together. Some houses were crushed into fragments, so the people inside were naturally crushed into mud."

However, some houses were stuck in the gaps and were not immediately crushed, so the people inside were not immediately killed.

And that resentment arose while they awaited death. I think I know why they were so resentful. Do you remember that three days before the earthquake, the country ordered the forced evacuation of residents in the earthquake zone?

At the time, news reports indicated that the entire nation cooperated fully, with everyone relocating to safer areas. When the earthquake struck, news reports also stated that the first wave of the earthquake would result in approximately 100,000 to 200,000 deaths in China.

Jiang Yin suddenly spoke up: "When I heard this number on the radio at school, my first reaction was that it was fake. How could there only be this many people?"

With a little analysis, we can get a rough idea of ​​the death toll. We said at the time that the death toll in the first wave of the earthquake would be at least in the seven figures, and to be even more bold, eight figures is not impossible.

Not to mention the numerous aftershocks, tsunamis, and typhoons that followed; the death toll is at least in the nine figures!

Ye Boxuan and the other soldiers remained silent. They knew the true figures and understood why the higher-ups didn't report the real numbers, for fear of plunging the country into panic and riots.

Jiang Yin's words silenced everyone.

Ye Ling sighed: "It is obvious that Huafeng County and the surrounding cities did not follow orders to evacuate completely."

The resentment likely arose because the people were misled or didn't realize the seriousness of the problem, so they stayed in their homes and didn't leave.

Using ice elemental techniques, I discovered that some cracks in Skid Peak County haven't fully healed, so the resentment and abyssal aura the expedition team detected must be emanating from these cracks.